Once he had regained control of his bowels, Guy swallowed his pride and obeyed. But not without support—he summoned Simon FitzSimon to accompany him down to the tunnels beneath the middle bailey. Simon and Guy had risen through the ranks of the Guard together, dating back decades when they were themselves the greenest of recruits in the same class. They had actually hated each other at first—Guy hated Simon since he was so Scottish, and Simon hated everyone else because he was so Scottish. Over the years they forged a brotherhood, regularly strengthened over a cask of ale. They did not always see eye to eye, and there had even been times when they famously, and loudly, worked against each other—but always in the name of bettering the Nottingham Guard. It would be Simon’s responsibility to fulfill de Lacy’s bastard new policy, so Guy refused to let him do so blindly.

“I’ve been instructed to recruit new Guardsmen from the prisons,” Guy told him, as evenly as possible. “As a way to work off their sentence. Non-violent prisoners only, of course. Tax evaders, poachers, war deserters.”

It was the most backward idea Guy had ever heard. Putting prisoners together with the men who imprisoned them was a catastrophe waiting to happen.

Simon’s reaction was his own. “Interesting.”

“Baron Roger de Lacy is the Sheriff now,” Guy continued, sensing Simon’s hesitation, “and wants you to put swords in the hands of criminals. That’s his right. You have the right to complain.”

The previous sheriff, Ralph Murdac, would have spat at the idea—largely because Murdac had been a good man and a good sheriff. But Murdac was dead, and de Lacy reveled in changing the ways Nottingham operated. In the time since de Lacy had been assigned the position, a month rarely went by without some new list of asinine laws or procedures. They normally just made Guy’s life more difficult—restricting what types of horses could be trained, mandating daily inventories of weapons that never move—but this latest one was downright dangerous.

“No complaints,” Simon said gruffly.

“Nothing? Surely you have at least an opinion on this, no?” They stopped at the prison’s entrance, a gated tunnel that dug down beneath the earthen bailey. “This is your field. Tell me truly, which I swear to reveal to no other, how the hell you feel about prisoners turning guard duty in The Simons’ Yard.”

“I would expect,” Simon mulled, “that some of these prisoner recruits might do perfectly fine. And that others will be terrible. Most will pro’ly desert at the first opportunity. And we’d best keep it secret, or the other Guardsmen will treat them cruelly. Or worse.”

Those were only the most obvious of consequences. “Try not to overwhelm me with your deductive prowess. I’m asking how you feel about it.”